


Date Night

by Merixcil



Series: BatCat Week 2017 [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Catwoman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Date Night, Established Relationship, F/M, Food, Light Dom/sub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24944539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Selina talks Bruce into trying out a new desert parlour
Relationships: Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Series: BatCat Week 2017 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805317
Kudos: 8





	Date Night

Gotham is slowly but surely being taken over by desert parlours. Just last week, Bruce was walking down Madison and saw men installing furniture and stripping down the walls of this place, tonight it’s a fully-fledged business with a healthy population of customers filling up it’s pastel coloured retro inspired booths, long after quitting time for the average barista.

Selina says this is a particularly good one, though how she’s had time to work that out he has no idea. He’s supposed to be meeting her in there, dressed down as he is in an old coat with one or two questionable stains on it – not enough to make him look like he just wandered in off the streets but enough to deter any suspicions that he’s a billionaire in disguise. The fake nose helps, and the sunglasses.

Sunglasses after dark are supposed to be tacky. Bruce examines his reflection in the shop window, pulls off the glasses and drags his hat further down over his eyes. It’ll have to do. If anyone does recognise him, he supposes he can slip out the back fairly easily. This property backs onto a rather narrow alley that winds its way through several blocks before coming out west of the diamond district, far enough out he would hope to have made plans on how to proceed by the time he arrives.

Bruce enters the parlour and starts scanning faces in search of Selina. He spots her almost instantly, hiding beneath an obnoxiously bad platinum wig and a thick rimmed set of spectacles with the lenses popped out. She’s occupying a candy pink booth a few rows back from the windows and eyeing up a gargantuan sheet of cardboard that he has to assume is the menu.

Bruce hurries over and drops into the seat opposite her, Selina doesn’t look up. “I’m torn between the brownie and the chocolate cake.”

Bruce frowns. “I thought this place specialised in ice cream.”

“It does. You get ice cream with the deserts, and they warm them up for you so you get the hot brownie with the cold ice cream. Plus, I’m probably gonna get a shake so it’s all good.”

It’s unlikely that Bruce would benefit from pointing out that there’s always ice cream in the Manor and Alfred’s supposed to make an incredible brownie. He knows that’s not the point. The point is being out together, in public, without any capes or younger bat family members getting under their feet. It’s a nice idea in principal, but for the time being he’s got to maintain the playboy Bruce Wayne persona and he’d like to limit his reported public interactions with his bride-to-be as far as possible until he’s ready to announce their engagement.

Selina bites her lip, eyes flashing from one side of the menu to the other. “You know what? It’s gotta be the chocolate cake. It comes with nuts and whipped cream.” Her eyes flick up to meet Bruce’s, grinning wide and excited like she’s just made a very important decision.

She holds that position for a full ten seconds before bursting into laughter. “Oh my God. What are you wearing?”

“Clothes.” Bruce says, nonplussed. 

“Is that what they’re calling those these days.” Selina wrinkles her nose but she’s still smiling. “Take that rotten old jacket off. Geez that looks like a Matches special. And what’s with the hat? You look like a flasher with strong political opinions about men’s oppression by women.”

“Reverse sexism isn’t real…”

“Well its good to know you haven't completely lost it.” She laughs as he shucks off his coat and tucks it down the side of the booth along with his hat. “Your _nose_ Bruce.”

“Names!” Bruce chides her.

Selina raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “Just…please explain the prosthetics.”

“I don’t want the paparazzi finding me here.”

“Oh, I see. So you don’t wanna be seen in public with me.” Selina’s still smirking at him, teasing. She’s never actually been on his arm for a formal public event and as such she doesn’t understand exactly what dating Bruce Wayne entails. It’s harder for him, he doesn’t see anything funny in his attempts to be discrete.

“Your wig is lovely by the way.” He counters.

Selina makes a show of preening overmuch, tossing back ratty stands of hair and brushing an uneven fringe out of the front of her glasses. “What wig? This is my real hair.”

Selina’s real hair grows black and straight and doesn’t take to hair dye. Hence her rather incredible selection of wigs and hairpieces. Bruce isn’t sure if the pixie cut she usually sports is maintained to make slipping in and out of them all the easier or if it’s an aesthetic choice. “Could have fooled me.”

“Well mister b-man, or whatever I’m supposed to call you when we’re out like this, you have bigger concerns than what I do with my hair.”

It’s Bruce’s turn to raise an eyebrow when Selina slips a hand onto his knee under the table. It’s cruel of her, really. She knows he has a more or less unexplored exhibitionist streak and when her eyes go hard yet warm like they’re doing just now he’s more or less putty under her hands. He takes measured breaths through his nose and tries to decide if he wants her to move her hand further up his thigh, right here in a desert parlour of all places. Certainly, the chances of him pushing her away are disappointingly low.

“Do I now?” Bruce’s eyes don’t leave hers. His voice does stay mercifully steady.

“Yes, you see.” Selina leans across the table and Bruce leans in to meet her half way. If she has to tip too much further forward she’ll be forced to take her hand off his knee and he refuses to let that happen. “We’re here, on a date, in public no less. And the waitress is walking over to us right now.”

Bruce doesn’t follow. “What?”

“What are you having?” Selina waggles the menu in front of his face and squeezes his knee, something she normally doesn’t do unless she’s issuing a command.

A twinge of disappointment curdles in Bruce’s gut. It’s not a sex thing. Which is probably for the best. But still. “Um…I don’t know.”

“Well what do you like?”

“I’m not exactly a foodie, Selina.”

“Names!” She winks.

“What can I get you guys?” The waitress asks. Her voice is gratingly cheerful and she’s dressed like she works in a nineteen fifties diner that went heavy on the frills.

Bruce has no idea what to say, so he lets Selina talk while he glances down frantically at the menu, trying to find something that doesn’t sound too horrifically sweet.

Selina fires off her order like gunfire, the practiced art of one well versed with an establishment. Bruce wonders just how many times she's been here already.

“And you?” The waitress turns to Bruce.

Bruce opens his mouth, still trying to make head or tail of the ridiculously long menu. Who needs fifteen ice cream sundaes to choose from? “I-“

“He’ll have the toffee waffle stack with extra marshmallows and chocolate ice cream on the side.” Selina cuts in.

The waitress nods and writes that down. “Anything else?”

Bruce shoots Selina a glare and she shrugs at him with a lazy grin. “Water, please.”

“Coming right up!” The waitress snatches up the menu and trots back to the ice cream counter at the front of the shop.

Selina’s hand is still on Bruce’s knee. “I can order for myself, you know.” He tells her.

“Yes, but you’d order something boring, with loads of fruit.”

“Fruit is…good.”

“You were going to say healthy.”

“I try to take care of myself.”

“Uh huh. When was the last time you ate something that wasn’t chicken breast or protein bars?” Selina asks.

It takes Bruce a moment to come up with an answer. Damian had demanded burritos after a long winded stake out and they had dropped into a hole in the wall place a couple of blocks from here after they were done for the night.

That had been over a week ago. Selina may have a point.

“Well they can’t be worse than Alfred’s waffles.” Bruce concedes. He leans back in the booth and tries not to focus on how the false nose he’s wearing is starting to put uncomfortable pressure on the bridge of his nose.

“That’s the spirit!” Selina nods. Her hand is still on his knee, it’s very distracting. “So, honey, what have you been up to?”

That’s a challenge if ever he heard one, he can see it flashing in her olive eyes. The codes he’s established with members of his family for discussing covert business in public spaces don’t apply between the two of them, because they’ve so rarely had cause to discuss work out of costume.

Of course, Selina might be asking about what Bruce has been doing in his more public time off, but seeing as he’d done little but sleep and work for the past month he can't see that that would interest her.

“I haven’t been up to much outside of work.” He admits. “But the other day I had to go and see a man about a crocodile.”

“Well that sounds like a whole lot of hassle, tell me more.”

Two hours later and Bruce has managed to explain the inner machinations of what he believes to be an overly complex Two Face plot in the works, all without saying anything that would be deemed suspect were he caught on tape. In return, Selina has told him about a whole lot of expensive items on loan to various Gotham museums and art galleries for the foreseeable future and he’s having to save the lecture on how he sincerely hopes she’s not going to try stealing them for the ride home.

Selina seems to read his mind. “Only an idiot would confess before committing the crime.” She bats her eyelashes and underneath the thick frames she looks almost innocent. That expression of wide eyed naivete that doesn’t suit her in the least but that she wears so well.

Bruce wants to kiss it off her.

“I’ll get the bill.” He says as they move towards the exit.

“Look at you, proper gentleman.” Selina smiles. “How were the waffles?”

“Overly sweet, dripping in saturated fats and a waste of good marshmallows.” Bruce tells her, honestly. “But the company was sublime.”

Selina smiles at that. She squeezes Bruce’s knee again, her hand has barely left it the entire evening and he can’t wait to get back to the Manor so she can make good on that unspoken promise.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted as part of a multi chaptered 'BatCat Week 2017' fic that I'm trying to split up. If you think you've read it before, you probably have
> 
> Comments on the previous posting of this fic (just ask if you want me to remove yours) include:
> 
> >Fudgyokra: This is so cute!!  
> >>Merixcil: Thank you!


End file.
